Breathe
by xxLostxLovexx
Summary: After the ordeal with her brothers best friend, Clary's family moves to Tennessee, where she tries to keep her secret, a secret...but her quest to stay secretive ends quickly. Sequel to Broken To No Return.


**Authors Note: Hey Guys! Guess what! Do you know what this is? No? It's the Sequel to Broken yays! Lol I finally have it done. It kinda took me a while because I've so busy with my church and youth group for like the last 3 days and yeahh but I promised you guys I would put it up soo I did! Well I'm going to let you guys read it so you can tell me what you think of it so far and if I should continue it or not. Soo here you guys goo Chapter One!**

**Disclaimer: I do Not Own The Mortal Instruments Series and I never will.**

Grass.

And more Grass.

Nothing but Grass.

Grass Grass Grass.

All I see out this stupid window is Grass, for hours and hours and hours. Once in a while a telephone poll or some houses and okay well tress would speckle my view of the boring back roads my Mom insisted on taking, claiming they were safer , but anything other than the green stuff was a rare sight.

You'd think we hadn't left yet. The drive from our last house in West Virginia to our new house in Tennessee was only a 7 hour drive, but you'd think it's 50. With nothing that I actually want to remember to occupy my mind, it seems like everything is moving so much slower. For the first time in a long time, life wasn't speeding by, in a blur; it was taking its sweet time, boring me half to death. I felt like we were moving in slow motion, watching the speedometer rise and fall from my spot in the back seat, anxiously. I wanted to get there already, so I could lie down and sulk in my new bedroom, and _not _miss anything about my last home, or the one before it, or the one before that.

I let out a huge sigh, and my mom answered it, fed up with my dismal mood,

"Oh come on Clary, I know you don't want to move, but it's for the better. Did you really want to stay in Fairmont?"

"I had friends there." I deadpanned, not bothering to put any emphasis on a phrase I'd repeated too many times. Luke, my step-dad, looked at me from the rearview window, and tried to cheer me up, with little success.

"You had a lot of enemies too, little red." I often times questioned whether or not he was really trying to cheer me up, because he never did a very good job of it.

Ignoring them, I turned to the little girl sitting in the car seat next to me, and commented,

"Ailey doesn't want to move either."

"I'm sure she doesn't, but she can't talk, so her vote doesn't count." My mom replied with a chuckle, like everything was okay, and we were a happy, normal, family again.

We weren't.

I wasn't _normal_.

I wasn't _happy._

They were a happy, normal family; I was not a part of that.

They thought I was over it, and I'd thought that too, for a while, but lately, I'd been spending time in my bleak, stark white bedroom, - which we'd never bothered to paint - thinking about it. The crack in the ceiling was what did it. My old bedroom had one just like it, and my eyes had been fixated on it countless times, while my mind was trying not to think about what was happening to me. It wasn't something I wanted to relive. There was absolutely nothing in my life that I wanted to relive anymore. The bad had so thickly covered the good, so that now when I thought of a good memory, I remembered what happened that night, or the next day, and it was completely ruined.

I tried to forget about it, but I couldn't seem to do it. Everybody was getting impatient, secretly wishing I would quit hibernating in my bedroom, only causing my depression to worsen. I couldn't do that. I wanted to...but for me, forgetting was not an option. My memory refused to let anything go. It was locked shut, and I'd swallowed the key.

"I'll teach her sign language. Then she can protest." I mumbled, once my voice had come back to me, too late.

Nobody said anything, so, sighing, I looked out the window again. I slowly stroked the dog -who was cutting off the circulation in my legs-'s back, staring out at nothing.

After what truly seemed like forever, the truck finally came upon a town. It was tiny, but at least there was more than just grass.

Luke stopped the truck in front of a grocery store, and dug through the console for his wallet.

"You probably don't wanna go grocery shopping with us, so why don't you take Ailey for a walk or something?" He said, keeping his eyes down the whole time, as he checked his wallet for money.

"Ok. Sure. Whatever." I spat, yanking the straps on Ailey's car seat off, wondering if maybe this was just an excuse for them to be alone to talk about me and how I wasn't getting better, and _maybe moving wasn't the right thing to do_.

I gently removed her from her car seat and climbed out of the truck, placing her on my hip once my feet were on the ground.

"Take your phone. Don't talk to strangers. Don't steal anything, and don't kill anybody." My mom advised, thinking she was funny.

I rolled my eyes and mumbled,

"I'll be sure not to do that."

Mom didn't say anything, she just disappeared with Luke into the disgusting run-down grocery store, which looked to be about a week away from condemnation. I wouldn't be surprised if there were rats in the food.

Ailey and I headed down the cracked sidewalk, which wasn't even existent in some places. Eventually, without me twisting my ankle or dying or anything, we came upon a park. Well, the sign said it was a park. If you ask me, it looked more like a graveyard of old playground equipment from the thirties.

There was a rusty slide, a swing set, which actually looked relatively safe, and an empty swimming pool that looked like it had been attacked by the Loch Ness monster.

Off to the side of the playground was a square of cracked cement, covered in dirt, getting sucked into the earth. It had a rusty basketball hoop on each side, both of which were missing the nets, and whose backboards were no longer white, due to the paint chipping off, and appeared about ready to fall over. The park was pretty much empty, except for several boys playing basketball, and a little girl, who couldn't be any older than six, swinging on the squeaky, rust covered swings, all by herself. I would usually wonder where her parents were, but in this town it didn't come as much of a surprise that the children were neglected as much as the playground was.

I walked over to where the "basketball court", where there was a large pile of sand, and sat Ailey down in it. I wasn't sure if I should, considering I didn't know what kind of things hid in the sand, but I let her play in it anyway. I can't protect myself, how can I be expected to protect her?

I followed her over to the sand pile, to make sure she didn't eat any of the sand, and stood awkwardly near her, feeling the eyes of the boys playing basketball boring into my back.

I guess this pile of dirt is supposed to be a sand box, minus the box. I couldn't say this is the best place to put it, what with a basketball court right next to it.

Ailey dug in the sand for a good five minutes, before the boys' basketball came flying toward her. I caught it on a bounce right before it hit her, and tossed it, what I thought was lightly, back to the boys. _Somehow, _by some miracle_,_ or just a random act of God, it made it through the hoop. All four -I counted- of the boys looked just as shocked as I felt. One of them caught the ball and tossed it to one of his friends.

"Good shot" Said the boy, as he came up to the sandbox, where Ailey and I stood, minding our own business.

"Thanks." I mumbled, not in the mood to talk to this guy. I was too depressed to take compliments seriously, at the moment.

"Do you play basketball or something?" He asked me, trying to start a conversation, when I was trying to end one.

"Oh, no. I suck at sports. I barely passed gym." I told him, unable to shut up when I had told myself I wasn't going to talk to him anymore.

"I find that hard to believe." He told me, running his hand through his sweaty, dirty blonde hair with a look on his face that told me he wasn't going away any time soon.

"Well, it's true." I assured him, trying to keep my end of the conversation to a minimal.

"Oh, I'm Tyler" He told me, his hands resting on his hips as he breathed heavily from his game of basketball. "Oh, uh, Johnson , yeah, sorry, I forgot my last name for a minute there."

He rambled nervously, with an expectant smile on his face.

"Clary Fray." I told him, figuring I should at least give him an introduction. I could've used a fake name, but my brain was focused on one thing, and that was not alternate identities.

Tyler nodded, just as Ailey stood up and started strangling my leg, squeezing it to tell me she was bored and wanted to do something else. I ruffled her hair, and she reached up for me with her tiny little sticky hands. I picked her up and rested her on my hip, to occupy her, but it didn't seem to be her idea of fun, so she started sticking her fingers in my ear, and pulling my hair, smiling her little face off all the while.

"Hey!" I exclaimed, pulling her finger out of my right ear.

Tyler stood there, watching us. I wasn't talking, hoping he'd take a hint and go away, but he didn't.

"Is this your sister?"

"Half sister." I answered, holding Ailey's hands away from my head with my free arm.

"You're moving into the old farmhouse on the corner of Bunker Hill and Crosby, right?" Tyler suddenly asked, surprising me by how much he knew now that he knew my name.

"Umm, yeah...how did you know that?" I asked, a little freaked out.

"Oh I know everybody's business here." He must've seen the scared look on my face, because he then added,

"I'm not, like, a spy...just, in a town this small everybody knows everything about everyone...plus I live like, two houses down from you."

I swallowed so much of the moisture in my mouth that it felt like a desert. Everything about everyone? _Great._

"Hey, once you're moved in...do you wanna, like, go see a movie or something? I mean, you probably don't really know anybody, so maybe you'd want to meet some people? I wouldn't be surprised if you didn't...I just thought, maybe...you know..."

I wanted to say no, but then I thought about it. Maybe it would be a good idea to get out and meet people. It might take my mind off of...other things.

I pulled a pen out of my purse and wrote my number on his hand, as my answer.

"Call me Friday and I'll see when I'm free, ok?" He smiled, looking surprised by the disappearance of my bad mood, and replied,

"I gotta go, see you around." He took off after his friends, who had thought it funny to leave while he was talking to me. I watched him disappear for a moment, holding Ailey up against my chest, until a horn honked, startling me. I spun around, to see that it was my mom.

I set Ailey back down, and held her hand as we made our way back to the car.

"Who was that?" My mom asked me, the second I opened the door.

"One of our neighbors, I guess." I replied, buckling Ailey into her car seat. and climbing in after him.

"I'm glad you met somebody here already." Luke said, turning around in his seat, to ruffle Ailey's hair. She smiled at her and her mouth opened, but no words came out.

I leaned against the window and stared at the dog, not wanting to see out the window anymore. I'd seen about enough of the town I was now living in. We drove in silence for several more minutes, until Luke turned onto a gravel road, and slowed down.

"We're almost there!" He exclaimed, happily. I didn't understand his enthusiasm, but when he pulled into the driveway, I _definitely _didn't understand it.

The house was a piece of crap, simple as that. It was in major need of a paint job, what was left of the shutters were hanging off the windows, the shingles on the roof were falling apart, the gutters were barely hanging on, and the fricking door was missing.

"With all the money we got from the trial and other stuff you couldn't get something with a door?" I asked my mom, trying not to say anything mean. Mom obviously thought there was something special about this place.

"I didn't use the trial money. That's yours."

"No it's not. I'm not claiming it. As far as I'm concerned, it can go to anyone who wants to have it. I already told you that. And you refuse to use it on useful things like doors?"

"Honey put it toward your college or something."

"Whatever" I replied.

I kind of, in the back of my mind, wanted to go to college. But that's what normal people do. .

Mom's voice brought me back from my thoughts, as he started talking about the _house?_ I wasn't so sure that was the right word for it. Maybe dilapidated shack, or crappy house-shaped stack of wood.

"Well, the house is safe, I had the insurance company look at it. We'll be using the first floor for a while, while the second floor is getting redone, so don't take anything up to your room yet."

It's not like I knew which room was mine anyway. This had been all mom and Luke. I'd stayed out of it. I hadn't cared in the least. It wasn't like the house made much of a difference in how much of a freak I was.

I nodded in reply, and stared at the house, while mom and Luke started unloading the U-Haul, starting with the big furniture.

It's a pretty scary house. It's straight out of a horror movie, simple as that. Then again, my life _is_ a horror movie. Maybe I do belong here.

**P.S: Eat It. Love It. Enjoy It. Taste It. Breath It. Hahaha Idk but Review Pleasseeee **


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